Check out these great spots for Wilkins coffee. They were made by Jim Henson back in the late 50s before Muppets fame. Each spot was 10 seconds and tightly crafted with an 8 second pitch and 2 second product shot, apparently he made 179 of them. They're a bit weird and sadistic but funny and direct.

This is what Jim had to say about them “We took a different approach,” “We tried to sell things by making people laugh.” Amen to that.

One of the biggest, most famous advertisers in the world has changed tack, so understandably people in the business are bound to take notice, examine, critique, etc. so I think this is an interesting one to get our teeth into to start the year.

Coca-Cola have dumped the 'Open Happiness' tag/campaign that they've been using for the last seven years, and have launched 'Taste The Feeling' with a whole load of telly and print ads made by a bunch of different agencies around the world. Here's a few examples...

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that we're always banging on about the relationship between product, brand and consumer, so it was interesting to read that Marcos de Quinto, CMO of Coca-Cola, said this in reference to this new approach "We want to help remind people why they love the product as much as they love the brand."

Anyway, what do you think dear reader? Is this a good move? What do you think of the new line? What about the actual executions? Does it even matter what Coke puts in its ads as long as they have a coke bottle in and appear all over the place? We'd love to know what you think in the comments below.

It's a pleasant Monday morning here at Sell! Towers so we thought we would treat our viewers to some lovely water colour illustrations from Scottish illustrator Will Freeborn. Feast your eyes on a few samples of his work below. More on his flickr, including a very nice series of illustrations for coffee cups.

Welcome to 2016. I hope your festive break and new year celebrations at least met or vastly exceeded your expectations.

So here we are in a new year. It's a leap year, so we get one extra day for free. This free day we all get happens to fall on Monday, which for most working people is a work day. What does this mean? Should we simply treat this mystical free day as another work day? Or should we spend it doing something a bit more interesting? A few years ago, we got a campaign going to get everyone the day off on Feb 29th. The BBC rang us up and everything. What do you think, should we have another go?

Also in 2016, Brazil will host the Olympic games (can you believe London 2012 was four years ago? Does anyone like the logo yet?). America will elect a new president (my money is on Bob Hoffman). And France will host the Euro 2016 football tournament, which at least one Sell! Sell! operative is hoping will result in an historic triumph for Northern Ireland.

In advertising, no doubt people will continue to say silly things and overcomplicate what is essentially a relatively simple business. People who don't actually make any advertising themselves will continue to write and talk about how to do it.

As a kind of antidote to all that nonsense, 2016 will also see the release of our book. Written by people who actually develop and make advertising every day (apart for Feb 29th obvs.) it's a no-nonsense, common-sense look at the things that we have found (in our own experience) make advertising work better. There'll be an initial, limited run out in the next couple of weeks. It looks a bit like this...

All that remains to be said is that I hope you all have a wonderful, healthy, happy and rewarding 2016.